Britisher’s Wonderful Invention

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 25, 22 June 1910, Page 42

Britisher’s Wonderful Invention

LONDON, May 6. “I can sit in an arm-chair in London and make my airship drop a bunch of flowers into a friend’s garden in Manchester, or Paris, or Berlin.” So said Mr. Thomas Raymond Phillips, as he stood on the stage of the London Hippodrome last Saturday, his fingers playing lightly over the keys of a complicated electrical apparatus standing on a table in front of him. The keys, save that they were blank, looked much like those of a typewriter. But every time he pressed one there was a whirring, crackling noise, and a jagged blue streak shot from each of two brass knobs towards a metal globe about the size of a small orange, that stood midway between them. Drifting about in mid-air over the auditorium was a 20ft model of a Zeppelin dirigible, a harmless, helpless-looking thing. Suddenly Mr. Phillips touched a key, there was a cr-r-rack! and the airship sprang into life and moved swiftly across the auditorium; cr-rack! and it stopped dead a few inches from the balcony rails. Another er-r-ack, and it rose quickly some 20ft, its propeller whirling faintly. Then to an accompaniment of whirring and crackling it voyaged round about and up and down, turning figures of eight and performing all manner of evolutions, finally stopping motionless in the air 40ft above the stalls. “Now,” said Mr. Phillips, “just imagina that row of seats is a row of houses, and that instead of a model, with paper toys in its hold, I am controlling a full-sized airship carrying a cargo of dynamite •bombs. Watch!”

He pressed a key. There was a faint click from the framework of the airship, and the bottom of the box hanging amidships fell like a trapdoor, releasing, not bombs, but a flight of paper birds that fluttered down on the seats beneath. “There!” said the inventor, as though closing his demonstration. But even as he commenced to answer the hail of questions, there came on the stage Mr. Grahame White, the aviator, full of interest and scepticism. For his benefit Mr. Phillips put more life into the model, and made it perform an even more wonderful series of evolutions, demonstrating his absolute command over the dirigible. It explored the auditorium from stalls to gallery. It nosed its way into a private box and out again. It soared over the orchestra ; then up towards the roof. “Turn it to the left,” suggested Mr. Grahame White. At the crack of command the model turned abruptly lefthanded, and explored the recesses of the upper circle. “Now bring it nearer,” and in a moment' it was at rest with its nose barely a yard from the aviator’s chest. “This—this is wonderful!” ejaculated Mr. White, and he begged to be allowed to manipulate the transmitter himself. Mr. Phillips had no objection, and presently, with a little tuition from the inventor, Mr. White was making the airship show off its paces, whilst Mr. Phillips was explaining the working of his invention and imbuing us with unlimited possibilities of the principle of wireless transmission of electric power. He claims that' his principle can be applied with as much success to manlifting airships and aeroplanes as he applied it to the model, and that, seated at a transmitter in London, he can send a dirigible balloon through the air at any height and to almost any distance. He can make it ascend or descend, turn to right' or left, go forwards or backwards, fast or slow. He can make it stop dead ■over’ any selected spot—a town, fortress or battleship —and, by simply touching a lever, can drop explosives on whatever lies beneath.

There was something uncanny and unreal about Saturday's demonstration. It seemed impossible that the mere pressing of buttons on a table could make tha model dirigible act in the manner sho did. But there was no deception, and knowing this, you could not help imagining this harmless model transformed into a grim, relentless weapon of war. The innocent model at the Hippodrome may be the mother of terrible children. Her offspring may be a fleet of aerial torpedoes, whose master can wreck a town or destroy a navy, five hundred miles from where he sits in an armchair pulling a cigar and fingering a keyboard. On the other hand, Mr. Phillips’ model may be the parent of an aerial fleet ministering only to the convenience and comfort of the human race. So may ie be.